Dog got up and sat in front of the child.

“Is he friendly?” Amanda asked. Her eyes had a floating quality because of the large, pale irises, the small specks of pupils. “He’s huge! Like a horse. Or a person.”

Izzy nodded but kept a strong hold on the leash just in case, and the little boy reached up to pat the animal’s flank. Dog sat very still and let the child pet him. Kurt smiled gummily at Izzy.

“He likes you,” Izzy told him.

Amanda knelt to stroke Dog’s bony head. How did she even move in those skintight jeans? It was hard not to stare down into the white V-neck T-shirt at her cleavage. The flowers sleeving her arms made Izzy think of Cyrus’s tattoos. Roses. Serpent. Panther. Falcon. Skull. Her name.

Not my name. Not anymore.

“Where are you two from?” Amanda asked.

“Salton Sea.”

“That’s some serious psychic energy over there, too. What do you do by the Salton Sea, Miss Aurora?”

“I make and sell things. Candles and chocolate. I work as a massage therapist.” It sounded odd already. The reminder that she’d once done things beside search for Cyrus. She’d need to get back to these things now, figure out something else, too, in order to support the animals and herself, in order to keep the house.

“Really? I could use a good massage.” Amanda tilted her head to the side, and she rubbed at her neck muscles. “I’m a doula and an exotic dancer, which is why my body’s wacked most of the time. Plus, I’m still nursing so there’s that—”

“You’re nursing?” The words had slipped out in a judge-y voice, unchecked, but Amanda didn’t seem to mind.

“Oh, yes.” She beamed. “He’s getting a little old, but we both like it. Although, I’m always leaking on everything.”

Izzy tried to imagine her own breasts expressing milk. She’d thought of it, imagined her breasts swelling, her nipples drawing and then letting go. Now her body felt hard like a boy’s, rigid with focus, determined.

“Do you live out here?” Izzy asked.

“No, I’m visiting. We’re in LA. Culver City, actually, if you’ve heard of it. I grew up by Ballona Creek.” Amanda explained that the creek was a natural waterway, once lined with sycamores, willows, Montezuma cypress, and filled with swamp and rainwater. The Gabrielino-Tongva people lived there; they farmed castor beans and used board boats waterproofed with asphaltum from the La Brea tar pits. The flooding left silt deposits that enriched the soil. “Like the Nile,” Amanda said. Until a big flood in 1934 that made farming impossible.

Izzy wasn’t sure why Amanda was telling her all this, but anything about LA interested her, especially now that she needed to think about starting a new life. “So, you came here for the meeting?”

“Oh, yes. The work they do is really powerful. They helped me so much. You’ll see.”

“Can I ask how?”

Amanda’s aqua eyes flitted and lit on Jeb surrounded by a gaggle of young women. Sky sat alone, cross-legged by the waterfall, eyes closed, meditating.